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The Sudden Appearance of Hope
My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. But we've met before - a thousand times.
It started when I was sixteen years old.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.
It started when I was sixteen years old.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.
476 pages, Hardcover
First published May 17, 2016
About the author
Claire North
21 books3,718 followersClaire North is actually Catherine Webb, a Carnegie Medal-nominated young-adult novel author whose first book, Mirror Dreams, was written when she was just 14 years old. She went on to write seven more successful YA novels.
Claire North is a pseudonym for adult fantasy books written by Catherine Webb, who also writes under the pseudonym Kate Griffin.
Claire North is a pseudonym for adult fantasy books written by Catherine Webb, who also writes under the pseudonym Kate Griffin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,733 reviews
June 9, 2023
4.5
Ugh, Claire North is just too good
Ugh, Claire North is just too good
March 5, 2018
A beautiful book that simply wasn’t for me.
Everyone forgets about Hope as soon as she leaves the room. 30s without seeing or hearing her and you start forgetting her existence…. The premise instantly attracted me but I went into this book expecting more sci-fi elements which is my fault.
This book is more of a literary fiction with social commentaries and stream of consciousness. Just not what I enjoy!
Everyone forgets about Hope as soon as she leaves the room. 30s without seeing or hearing her and you start forgetting her existence…. The premise instantly attracted me but I went into this book expecting more sci-fi elements which is my fault.
This book is more of a literary fiction with social commentaries and stream of consciousness. Just not what I enjoy!
August 29, 2016
So I am definitely in the minority with my opinions on this book. I really wanted to love the story, as so many people seem to do, but there was something lacking in it for me and I can't quite pinpoint what that is exactly. I felt a disconnect from the characters and the plot, as if the author was keeping me at arm's length away, and, despite the beautiful lyrical quality of the writing, this hampered by enjoyment of the book.
The story follows Hope Arden, a teenager with the ability to disappear. She does not literally become invisible, but fades from the memories of all those she meets, moments after they set eyes on her. This makes her an excellent thief and a lonely individual.
Hope's story is a fascinating one and promised intrigue and thrills, of which it delivered, but it was too drawn out and dispersed to have any deep impact on me. The writing, although beautiful, had a strange, hypnotic quality to it that was captivating and yet protracted the novel and buried the story. This was further hampered by Hope's continual travelling and the prolonged depictions of her changed settings.
This was beautifully evocative but just didn't fully click with me.
The story follows Hope Arden, a teenager with the ability to disappear. She does not literally become invisible, but fades from the memories of all those she meets, moments after they set eyes on her. This makes her an excellent thief and a lonely individual.
Hope's story is a fascinating one and promised intrigue and thrills, of which it delivered, but it was too drawn out and dispersed to have any deep impact on me. The writing, although beautiful, had a strange, hypnotic quality to it that was captivating and yet protracted the novel and buried the story. This was further hampered by Hope's continual travelling and the prolonged depictions of her changed settings.
This was beautifully evocative but just didn't fully click with me.
September 17, 2016
Freedom and Slavery, as written by one of the most dauntless minds in literature, today. :)
Of course, it's also a very clever novel of freedom and slavery, written within a couple of very interesting premises, but by this point, I'm willing to assume that this great author is always going to push the hell out of boundaries.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August brought out being different lives by reliving the whole damn life within one person, and Touch polarized the concept of identity by hopping from body to body while always being the core someone within, and The Sudden Appearance of Hope turns it all around once again.
What are the real consequences of living a life where no one can remember you? Turn thief, hacker, and be endlessly jealous of others who can at least have some way to define themselves by how others perceive them? This premise is much bigger than it first appears. This isn't a super-power or a mild tale of the invisible woman. Hope is a complicated and rather brilliant woman who is absolutely free to do whatever she wants except for the one thing that's denied her. Home, Love, and Hope.
The second wonderful premise is the idea of Perfection. Think about a social app on steroids that makes facebook look away in shame, that pushes each user to to become their better selves with recommendations and rewards that gets so big that the whole damn world is enraptured by it... even if it is Culture As Pure Marketing, soulless and enslaved.
Hope is the diametric opposite of Perfection, and most of the novel is a dance between both of these ideas. It's a thriller and an introspective and horrifying SF all at once. And it's deep. Very deep. I can't recommend this tale enough. It's very much a social tale and one that revolves around identity, but it also has a good deal of Tor browsers and high-tech theft, too, so I personally thought it was fun as freaking hell. :) Tour de force. :)
Of course, it's also a very clever novel of freedom and slavery, written within a couple of very interesting premises, but by this point, I'm willing to assume that this great author is always going to push the hell out of boundaries.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August brought out being different lives by reliving the whole damn life within one person, and Touch polarized the concept of identity by hopping from body to body while always being the core someone within, and The Sudden Appearance of Hope turns it all around once again.
What are the real consequences of living a life where no one can remember you? Turn thief, hacker, and be endlessly jealous of others who can at least have some way to define themselves by how others perceive them? This premise is much bigger than it first appears. This isn't a super-power or a mild tale of the invisible woman. Hope is a complicated and rather brilliant woman who is absolutely free to do whatever she wants except for the one thing that's denied her. Home, Love, and Hope.
The second wonderful premise is the idea of Perfection. Think about a social app on steroids that makes facebook look away in shame, that pushes each user to to become their better selves with recommendations and rewards that gets so big that the whole damn world is enraptured by it... even if it is Culture As Pure Marketing, soulless and enslaved.
Hope is the diametric opposite of Perfection, and most of the novel is a dance between both of these ideas. It's a thriller and an introspective and horrifying SF all at once. And it's deep. Very deep. I can't recommend this tale enough. It's very much a social tale and one that revolves around identity, but it also has a good deal of Tor browsers and high-tech theft, too, so I personally thought it was fun as freaking hell. :) Tour de force. :)
April 3, 2016
I loved the premise of this book. Hope, our main character, cannot be remembered once out of sight. The wondrous possibilities of this occupied my mind while reading the book, and continue to do so. I have decided that I am one of two things, lucky or boring. For if it were me, all I would do is travel and read more. Essentially, what I do now, but, you know.....more... Showing a much greater capacity for imagination, the author has made Hope an international jewel thief. In fact, North has two separate, but linked stories running through the novel, either of which could have easily garnered enough interest for a book. First, Hope's being forgotten. Second, Perfection: a lifestyle app/service which monitors your every interaction to make you a 'better', more 'perfect' person. Topical, you say? Oh yes. And entirely believable. Unlike the whole not being memorable thing. Intertwined, they validate each other and create a fascinating world that is our own, but not quite. Especially as North takes the brilliant decision not to explain why Hope is how she is. Magic tricks aren't as fun once you know how they're done.
It was, however, just the slightest bit too long. For the most part, I enjoyed the scattered thoughts and comments of the protagonist, but towards the end it began to feel stretched. There were parts that maybe didn't need to be there, a little too much internal monologuing.
In any case, that shouldn't put anyone off. The book is refreshingly fun and original.
Many thanks to Claire North, Little, Brown Book Group UK, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
It was, however, just the slightest bit too long. For the most part, I enjoyed the scattered thoughts and comments of the protagonist, but towards the end it began to feel stretched. There were parts that maybe didn't need to be there, a little too much internal monologuing.
In any case, that shouldn't put anyone off. The book is refreshingly fun and original.
Many thanks to Claire North, Little, Brown Book Group UK, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
November 13, 2016
A very interesting and very cleverly worked out premise. Hope is a young woman who people just cannot remember. You can talk to her, even have a long intellectual discussion with her, but then if you turn away from her you will forget her. Turn back and see a perfect stranger.
This of course has huge implications for how she exists. She cannot hold a job. In fact she can’t even apply for one because as soon as she leaves the interview room she is forgotten. When she is obliged to go to hospital she does not get cared for or even fed because the staff forget she is there. She is left with only one way to survive and that is by stealing for which purpose she is perfectly designed. There's nothing quite like being able to walk out of the police station unaccosted because the arresting officer looked away and forgot who you were or why you were there.
Claire North has a wonderful way with words and a style of writing which just keeps you turning those pages. This was probably not my favourite of her books so far but it was certainly very good and very entertaining.
This of course has huge implications for how she exists. She cannot hold a job. In fact she can’t even apply for one because as soon as she leaves the interview room she is forgotten. When she is obliged to go to hospital she does not get cared for or even fed because the staff forget she is there. She is left with only one way to survive and that is by stealing for which purpose she is perfectly designed. There's nothing quite like being able to walk out of the police station unaccosted because the arresting officer looked away and forgot who you were or why you were there.
Claire North has a wonderful way with words and a style of writing which just keeps you turning those pages. This was probably not my favourite of her books so far but it was certainly very good and very entertaining.
September 3, 2019
Very late in reading this book. This ones been taken from my past TBR list.
I’ve given it 3* but don’t be mistaken it’s not a good book, it was. It was well written and exquisitely done.
And yes I would recommend it to certain book readers but not to others.
I’m just not sure what shelf to put this on. It’s a strange one.
Hope is not invisible and she doesn’t have powers to maker herself vanish, yet......as soon as she leaves a room or a persons presence she is immediately forgotten like she doesn’t exist. Obligated from their memory.
She can work this to her advantage and she does.
The story and writing in itself was good. I felt (personally) that it was drawn out in parts which then made it tedious to read in those specific parts of the book.
Well worth a read. Don’t expect too much though.
I’ve given it 3* but don’t be mistaken it’s not a good book, it was. It was well written and exquisitely done.
And yes I would recommend it to certain book readers but not to others.
I’m just not sure what shelf to put this on. It’s a strange one.
Hope is not invisible and she doesn’t have powers to maker herself vanish, yet......as soon as she leaves a room or a persons presence she is immediately forgotten like she doesn’t exist. Obligated from their memory.
She can work this to her advantage and she does.
The story and writing in itself was good. I felt (personally) that it was drawn out in parts which then made it tedious to read in those specific parts of the book.
Well worth a read. Don’t expect too much though.
April 13, 2018
Extraordinary in every way. Another masterpiece by Ms North.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
Who am I? What makes me, Me? ... and much deeper thoughts I cannot yet express ...
Claire North is a philosopher, a teacher, a young miracle of wisdom. To become her protagonists is to discover hidden parts of who we are, who we might be. She reaches inside us, she opens us to who we really are, and then asks us, "Why?"
Again and again, she astonishes me. I have never read an author like her. Extraordinary.
A clever concept: Hope Arden is noticed and remembered only when people are looking at her, interacting with her. She meets Parker, another person like her, and aches to remember him:
I am frightened now. I am frightened that when he fades from my memory, a piece of me will die too. The feelings, the things I have learned, the ideas I have had today, so many ideas, so many feelings, they will die with my memory. I fear that loss. But more, a terror that I must share with my future self. I fear what this means for me.
If you forget the joy of this day, then what joy you give to others will also be forgotten, and your life has no consequence, no meaning, no worth. I am a shadow, blasted away by the sun, a meaningless occlusion of light that fades with the day.
- - -
I say:
The past is gone, and tomorrow is an illusion.
There is only Now.
And here, Claire expresses what I know, more eloquently of course:
You said that, since the past vanishes with memory, all that we can live in is now..... What matters, therefore, is not hope for things to come, nor regret for things passed, but this action in this moment, these deeds, this now.
Claire has a little dial she gently turns as she writes, higher and higher as we read. We see the dial is labelled EXTRAORDINARY...
23% ... Hope:
I cannot remember Parker now. I do not remember his face, his touch, his body, his words, his deeds, our days. But I have one thought that I cling to in this present time: that at the end of that week we spent together, I had acquired a taste for comedy. He is forgotten, but I am changed. I have no words to express how wondrous this is.
I ache to quote so much of this book, as usual for Claire North...
She was crying, silently, holding my arm, crying. I let her cry a while, held her close, felt her snot and tears on my shoulder, wanted to cry myself, why is that, when I hear a child cry on the train it makes me sad, see a stranger weep and feel tears come to my eyes, a weakness, perhaps, a place where emotion hasn’t become accustomed to the extremities of feeling.
47% ... Me, too....
I found I was crying, just crying, just a girl crying, and the carer asked softly, where’s your sister now?
"Not so far away, I replied. Not so far.”
61% ...
Hope says:
“Is that why you keep me around? Because you think… I’m free?”
Silence, a while.
Then, “Yes. I think you are the only free woman I have ever met.”
I sat, shaking, and didn’t have any words.
If Hope has true freedom, then freedom is never what we seek... What an astounding thought.
99% ...
“There is a society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before
To mingle with the universe and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”
- Lord Byron
- - -
Wow. Hope's friend, Byron14 says:
“We have sacrificed thought,” she replied flatly, voice hard, eyes steady. “We live in a land of freedom, and the only freedoms we can choose are to spend, fuck and eat. The rest is taboo. Loner. Slut. Weirdo. Faggot. Whore. Bitch. Druggie. Scrounger. Ugly. Poor. Muslim. Other. Hate the other. Kill the other. Aspire, as us, to be together, to become better, to become… perfect. Perfection. A unified ideal. Perfection: flawless. Perfection: white, rich, male. Perfection: car, shoe, dress, smile. Perfection: the death of thought."
- - -
So We'll Go No More a Roving
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
- Lord Byron
............
And at the end, I wept. Why?
It’s not easy to say....
Is it because there is no hope, or because there is?
Is it Hope’s fate that makes us weep?
Or is it our fate?
Is it because we are alone in ways that can never be expressed?
I know that it is primal, this need, this quest.
And as I have grown old, I have found this inside me, more clear with each year -
- - -
Notes and quotes
6.0% ... delicious Claire North...
“For a copper to marry an immigrant, particularly at that time,” mused my aunt, “it says a lot about their love. But then, your dad always was a good man first, and a copper second; it’s why his career’s been so slow. And your mum… she’s always believed in people. That’s why she called you Hope.”
13.0% ... “Reality: the conjectured state of things as they actually exist.”"
15.0% ... Wow
If you forget the joy of this day, then what joy you give to others will also be forgotten, and your life has no consequence, no meaning, no worth. I am a shadow, blasted away by the sun, a meaningless occlusion of light that fades with the day.
37.0% .... a plot twist, unexpected, a joy, a sorrow. A truth about being alone, but not, sometimes.
44.0% .... I love the precision, the tradecraft of Hope's thievery. Her theft in this part of the book is ballet, is Olympic, is bewitching... awesome!
50.0% ... Written in 2015, Claire North is prescient:
“An electoral campaign based on hating the foreigner, the poor, the unknown, every lie of course destroyed by experts ... but Matheus Pereyra did not print the views of the experts, but rather… printed the screaming. Always, the world screaming, loudly, screaming”
71.0% ... Claire North has a little dial she gently turns, higher and higher as she writes. We see the dial is labelled EXTRAORDINARY...
98.0% ... Claire is a philosopher, a teacher, a young miracle of wisdom. To become her protagonists is to discover hidden parts of who you are, who you might be. Again and again, she astonishes me.
.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
Who am I? What makes me, Me? ... and much deeper thoughts I cannot yet express ...
Claire North is a philosopher, a teacher, a young miracle of wisdom. To become her protagonists is to discover hidden parts of who we are, who we might be. She reaches inside us, she opens us to who we really are, and then asks us, "Why?"
Again and again, she astonishes me. I have never read an author like her. Extraordinary.
A clever concept: Hope Arden is noticed and remembered only when people are looking at her, interacting with her. She meets Parker, another person like her, and aches to remember him:
I am frightened now. I am frightened that when he fades from my memory, a piece of me will die too. The feelings, the things I have learned, the ideas I have had today, so many ideas, so many feelings, they will die with my memory. I fear that loss. But more, a terror that I must share with my future self. I fear what this means for me.
If you forget the joy of this day, then what joy you give to others will also be forgotten, and your life has no consequence, no meaning, no worth. I am a shadow, blasted away by the sun, a meaningless occlusion of light that fades with the day.
- - -
I say:
The past is gone, and tomorrow is an illusion.
There is only Now.
And here, Claire expresses what I know, more eloquently of course:
You said that, since the past vanishes with memory, all that we can live in is now..... What matters, therefore, is not hope for things to come, nor regret for things passed, but this action in this moment, these deeds, this now.
Claire has a little dial she gently turns as she writes, higher and higher as we read. We see the dial is labelled EXTRAORDINARY...
23% ... Hope:
I cannot remember Parker now. I do not remember his face, his touch, his body, his words, his deeds, our days. But I have one thought that I cling to in this present time: that at the end of that week we spent together, I had acquired a taste for comedy. He is forgotten, but I am changed. I have no words to express how wondrous this is.
I ache to quote so much of this book, as usual for Claire North...
She was crying, silently, holding my arm, crying. I let her cry a while, held her close, felt her snot and tears on my shoulder, wanted to cry myself, why is that, when I hear a child cry on the train it makes me sad, see a stranger weep and feel tears come to my eyes, a weakness, perhaps, a place where emotion hasn’t become accustomed to the extremities of feeling.
47% ... Me, too....
I found I was crying, just crying, just a girl crying, and the carer asked softly, where’s your sister now?
"Not so far away, I replied. Not so far.”
61% ...
Hope says:
“Is that why you keep me around? Because you think… I’m free?”
Silence, a while.
Then, “Yes. I think you are the only free woman I have ever met.”
I sat, shaking, and didn’t have any words.
If Hope has true freedom, then freedom is never what we seek... What an astounding thought.
99% ...
“There is a society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before
To mingle with the universe and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”
- Lord Byron
- - -
Wow. Hope's friend, Byron14 says:
“We have sacrificed thought,” she replied flatly, voice hard, eyes steady. “We live in a land of freedom, and the only freedoms we can choose are to spend, fuck and eat. The rest is taboo. Loner. Slut. Weirdo. Faggot. Whore. Bitch. Druggie. Scrounger. Ugly. Poor. Muslim. Other. Hate the other. Kill the other. Aspire, as us, to be together, to become better, to become… perfect. Perfection. A unified ideal. Perfection: flawless. Perfection: white, rich, male. Perfection: car, shoe, dress, smile. Perfection: the death of thought."
- - -
So We'll Go No More a Roving
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
- Lord Byron
............
And at the end, I wept. Why?
It’s not easy to say....
Is it because there is no hope, or because there is?
Is it Hope’s fate that makes us weep?
Or is it our fate?
Is it because we are alone in ways that can never be expressed?
I know that it is primal, this need, this quest.
And as I have grown old, I have found this inside me, more clear with each year -
Life is too short, and sometimes brutal,
and in the end we have only each other.
Nothing else matters.
- - -
Notes and quotes
6.0% ... delicious Claire North...
“For a copper to marry an immigrant, particularly at that time,” mused my aunt, “it says a lot about their love. But then, your dad always was a good man first, and a copper second; it’s why his career’s been so slow. And your mum… she’s always believed in people. That’s why she called you Hope.”
13.0% ... “Reality: the conjectured state of things as they actually exist.”"
15.0% ... Wow
If you forget the joy of this day, then what joy you give to others will also be forgotten, and your life has no consequence, no meaning, no worth. I am a shadow, blasted away by the sun, a meaningless occlusion of light that fades with the day.
37.0% .... a plot twist, unexpected, a joy, a sorrow. A truth about being alone, but not, sometimes.
44.0% .... I love the precision, the tradecraft of Hope's thievery. Her theft in this part of the book is ballet, is Olympic, is bewitching... awesome!
50.0% ... Written in 2015, Claire North is prescient:
“An electoral campaign based on hating the foreigner, the poor, the unknown, every lie of course destroyed by experts ... but Matheus Pereyra did not print the views of the experts, but rather… printed the screaming. Always, the world screaming, loudly, screaming”
71.0% ... Claire North has a little dial she gently turns, higher and higher as she writes. We see the dial is labelled EXTRAORDINARY...
98.0% ... Claire is a philosopher, a teacher, a young miracle of wisdom. To become her protagonists is to discover hidden parts of who you are, who you might be. Again and again, she astonishes me.
.
August 5, 2017
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
I put this one on hold after seeing my friend Christopher’s very concise review and glancing at the synopsis enough to see that Hope is someone who no one remembers. Literally. That was enough for me. And now?????
It appears that Claire North has quite the cult following so please don’t troll me. Although this was my first experience with Ms. North (or Ms. Webb, depending on the book), I think it’s pretty safe to say her writing style either works for you or it doesn’t. Obviously my rating indicates that it didn’t work for me. At nearly 500 pages, I found this to be waaaaaay too verbose in relation to the amount of story being delivered, the dialogue felt stilted and since Hope was forgotten almost instantaneously once out of someone’s sight, most of the scenes were pretty much like . . . . .
With a touch of this thrown in for good measure . . . . .
What the?????
In my defense, while perusing the glowing reviews I found several that talked about how this was a young adult selection and that Hope was in her teens. Uhhhhhh, there is a big ol’ segment regarding “a letter, from myself, to myself, written when I was twenty-four years old.” I will gladly admit I read this wrong, but it seems like some others did too.
I put this one on hold after seeing my friend Christopher’s very concise review and glancing at the synopsis enough to see that Hope is someone who no one remembers. Literally. That was enough for me. And now?????
It appears that Claire North has quite the cult following so please don’t troll me. Although this was my first experience with Ms. North (or Ms. Webb, depending on the book), I think it’s pretty safe to say her writing style either works for you or it doesn’t. Obviously my rating indicates that it didn’t work for me. At nearly 500 pages, I found this to be waaaaaay too verbose in relation to the amount of story being delivered, the dialogue felt stilted and since Hope was forgotten almost instantaneously once out of someone’s sight, most of the scenes were pretty much like . . . . .
With a touch of this thrown in for good measure . . . . .
What the?????
In my defense, while perusing the glowing reviews I found several that talked about how this was a young adult selection and that Hope was in her teens. Uhhhhhh, there is a big ol’ segment regarding “a letter, from myself, to myself, written when I was twenty-four years old.” I will gladly admit I read this wrong, but it seems like some others did too.
June 8, 2016
4 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2016/06/08/...
Claire North’s books tend to be very hard to categorize, and describing them always makes me feel like I’m talking myself through some fascinating thought experiment. Last year, I discovered the author when I picked up her novel Touch, a thriller about an immortal character whose consciousness could jump from body to body, choosing to be anyone they want, live any life they want, for however long they want—and their hosts won’t remember a thing. I ended up loving my first taste of North’s work, so this time, I decided to try her new book in audio for my next mind-trip: The Sudden Appearance of Hope, a story about a young woman who can’t be remembered.
Imagine not being able to remain in anyone’s memory long enough for them to look back after walking out of view, or even just briefly after breaking line of sight. You can meet someone for the first time multiple times, or have the same conversations with them over and over again because they can never remember. Trying to get service in a store or in a restaurant would be a major pain in the ass, and visits to the hospital can be at best a frustrating situation (nurse forgets that you were put in a waiting room), or at worst a life or death predicament (surgeon steps away to use the toilet while you’re on the operating table). You’ll live a mostly solitary existence, unable to form lasting relationships. Share a meal with someone, and all they’ll remember afterwards is eating alone. Even your parents will end up forgetting you. It’s a tricky, tragic, lonely life.
But on the other hand, if no one will ever remember you, what’s to stop you from doing anything you want? You can have a bad day and vent your spleen at an incompetent clerk, leave and it’ll be like your outburst never happened. Punch someone in the face then run away, and no one will be the wiser. Or you can rob a jewelry store, snatch someone’s wallet right out of their hands, and before anyone can even call the police, you’ll be lost in the crowd and everyone would have forgotten you were even there.
That’s the life of Hope Arden, who started fading from everyone’s memory when she was just sixteen years old. Since a proper job, a proper life, a proper anything is out of the question, she has decided to partake in all the criminal activities best suited for someone with her strange condition. Being an international jewel thief helps pay the bills, and it also gives her the satisfaction of stealing from the hoity-toity rich.
But then, going against all her own rules, Hope lets it get personal. A woman commits suicide in a posh hotel in Dubai, the site of our protagonist’s latest heist. At the heart of it is something called Perfection, a lifestyle app that gains access to all your schedules and bank accounts, monitoring everything you are and everything you do. It will make suggestions—what to eat, what to wear, who to date, where to vacation, etc.—and reward you with points when you do what it says, all to nudge you towards becoming a “better” and more “perfect” person. Just the idea of the app repulses Hope, but in it she does find a new target for her anger and a new cause to fight for.
I was really blown away by how North was able to construct this entire multi-layered narrative around just one remarkable, singular idea: What if no one can remember you? At one point, Hope even meets someone with the exact same kind of condition, which was certainly an interesting few chapters. If you had described that situation to me before I read this, I would have said it would make an excellent short story. But 500-page book? How can you write about an idea like that and expand it so you don’t wear out the novelty?
Well, Claire North showed me how it can be done, and not only that, she made it suspenseful, absorbing, and highly emotional. As human beings, we all seem to be obsessed with the idea of “leaving a legacy”. There’s this natural desire to be remembered, if not for ourselves then for our actions. For someone whose ability to make an impression is stripped away, that can be psychologically devastating, and in Hope we see the full range of those effects. What’s the value of personhood, after all, if no one can remember you long enough to appreciate it? Perhaps that is why Perfection is so abhorrent to Hope, because it makes an individual erase themselves little by little, when they already have something Hope will never experience.
And speaking of emotional, the narration on this audiobook is absolutely fantastic. Gillian Burke allows for every single feeling to come across in her voice, from giddiness to melancholy, fury to terror. Hope’s story takes us on all these ups and downs and Burke manages to capture all those moments in her reading. When I researched her narrator profile, she describes herself as having a mixed ancestry, coming from “nowhere and everywhere”, thus giving her a natural talent for different accents. It definitely shows in her narration for this book, which takes us all over the world to meet characters from cities like Dubai, London, Hong Kong, Paris, Venice, Seoul, Cairo, Edinburgh, Tokyo, and more.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope ended up being everything I expected from a novel by Claire North: original, entertaining, and hard-hitting. Her stories are always so different, which may or may not work depending on the kind of reader you are. I never know whether her books will run hot or cold for me, so it was nice to dive into this audiobook and come out on the other side with a very positive experience. I enjoyed this one a lot!
Claire North’s books tend to be very hard to categorize, and describing them always makes me feel like I’m talking myself through some fascinating thought experiment. Last year, I discovered the author when I picked up her novel Touch, a thriller about an immortal character whose consciousness could jump from body to body, choosing to be anyone they want, live any life they want, for however long they want—and their hosts won’t remember a thing. I ended up loving my first taste of North’s work, so this time, I decided to try her new book in audio for my next mind-trip: The Sudden Appearance of Hope, a story about a young woman who can’t be remembered.
Imagine not being able to remain in anyone’s memory long enough for them to look back after walking out of view, or even just briefly after breaking line of sight. You can meet someone for the first time multiple times, or have the same conversations with them over and over again because they can never remember. Trying to get service in a store or in a restaurant would be a major pain in the ass, and visits to the hospital can be at best a frustrating situation (nurse forgets that you were put in a waiting room), or at worst a life or death predicament (surgeon steps away to use the toilet while you’re on the operating table). You’ll live a mostly solitary existence, unable to form lasting relationships. Share a meal with someone, and all they’ll remember afterwards is eating alone. Even your parents will end up forgetting you. It’s a tricky, tragic, lonely life.
But on the other hand, if no one will ever remember you, what’s to stop you from doing anything you want? You can have a bad day and vent your spleen at an incompetent clerk, leave and it’ll be like your outburst never happened. Punch someone in the face then run away, and no one will be the wiser. Or you can rob a jewelry store, snatch someone’s wallet right out of their hands, and before anyone can even call the police, you’ll be lost in the crowd and everyone would have forgotten you were even there.
That’s the life of Hope Arden, who started fading from everyone’s memory when she was just sixteen years old. Since a proper job, a proper life, a proper anything is out of the question, she has decided to partake in all the criminal activities best suited for someone with her strange condition. Being an international jewel thief helps pay the bills, and it also gives her the satisfaction of stealing from the hoity-toity rich.
But then, going against all her own rules, Hope lets it get personal. A woman commits suicide in a posh hotel in Dubai, the site of our protagonist’s latest heist. At the heart of it is something called Perfection, a lifestyle app that gains access to all your schedules and bank accounts, monitoring everything you are and everything you do. It will make suggestions—what to eat, what to wear, who to date, where to vacation, etc.—and reward you with points when you do what it says, all to nudge you towards becoming a “better” and more “perfect” person. Just the idea of the app repulses Hope, but in it she does find a new target for her anger and a new cause to fight for.
I was really blown away by how North was able to construct this entire multi-layered narrative around just one remarkable, singular idea: What if no one can remember you? At one point, Hope even meets someone with the exact same kind of condition, which was certainly an interesting few chapters. If you had described that situation to me before I read this, I would have said it would make an excellent short story. But 500-page book? How can you write about an idea like that and expand it so you don’t wear out the novelty?
Well, Claire North showed me how it can be done, and not only that, she made it suspenseful, absorbing, and highly emotional. As human beings, we all seem to be obsessed with the idea of “leaving a legacy”. There’s this natural desire to be remembered, if not for ourselves then for our actions. For someone whose ability to make an impression is stripped away, that can be psychologically devastating, and in Hope we see the full range of those effects. What’s the value of personhood, after all, if no one can remember you long enough to appreciate it? Perhaps that is why Perfection is so abhorrent to Hope, because it makes an individual erase themselves little by little, when they already have something Hope will never experience.
And speaking of emotional, the narration on this audiobook is absolutely fantastic. Gillian Burke allows for every single feeling to come across in her voice, from giddiness to melancholy, fury to terror. Hope’s story takes us on all these ups and downs and Burke manages to capture all those moments in her reading. When I researched her narrator profile, she describes herself as having a mixed ancestry, coming from “nowhere and everywhere”, thus giving her a natural talent for different accents. It definitely shows in her narration for this book, which takes us all over the world to meet characters from cities like Dubai, London, Hong Kong, Paris, Venice, Seoul, Cairo, Edinburgh, Tokyo, and more.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope ended up being everything I expected from a novel by Claire North: original, entertaining, and hard-hitting. Her stories are always so different, which may or may not work depending on the kind of reader you are. I never know whether her books will run hot or cold for me, so it was nice to dive into this audiobook and come out on the other side with a very positive experience. I enjoyed this one a lot!
September 9, 2016
A relatively simple idea, but played out to perfection.
What is a person? How do you define yourself? By how others perceive you? What if they can't have a perception of you in any lasting way? Even scarier, what if your person was defined by the perceptions of other people and only by the perceptions of what other people think of as perfect?
No-one remembers Hope Arden which makes her day-to-day life hellish and lonely and she's forced to rely on theft to make her way in the world. Any human connection she makes is necessarily one-sided as the other party forgets her and everything she does in minutes. She makes one of these connections to a young woman who uses a new app called Perfection that combines Facebook-level privacy-intrusion with life coaching and direct marketing and who soon commits suicide. Undiagnosed depression and a constant presence telling you that you're not good enough is not a good combination. Guilt at realizing the girl's mental state and anger at Perfection lead Hope into a personal investigation that sends her far down the rabbit hole.
This is brilliant. There's a critique of how a person interacts with society in here and how much you should let society define you, either incidentally or deliberately. There's also a morality play going on about the end justifying the means. The growth of Hope's character throughout is well done, but all the characters are wonderfully portrayed. Tragic Reina and Filipa and the characters of Gaugin, Byron and Luca are all extremely (ironically) memorable.
What is a person? How do you define yourself? By how others perceive you? What if they can't have a perception of you in any lasting way? Even scarier, what if your person was defined by the perceptions of other people and only by the perceptions of what other people think of as perfect?
No-one remembers Hope Arden which makes her day-to-day life hellish and lonely and she's forced to rely on theft to make her way in the world. Any human connection she makes is necessarily one-sided as the other party forgets her and everything she does in minutes. She makes one of these connections to a young woman who uses a new app called Perfection that combines Facebook-level privacy-intrusion with life coaching and direct marketing and who soon commits suicide. Undiagnosed depression and a constant presence telling you that you're not good enough is not a good combination. Guilt at realizing the girl's mental state and anger at Perfection lead Hope into a personal investigation that sends her far down the rabbit hole.
This is brilliant. There's a critique of how a person interacts with society in here and how much you should let society define you, either incidentally or deliberately. There's also a morality play going on about the end justifying the means. The growth of Hope's character throughout is well done, but all the characters are wonderfully portrayed. Tragic Reina and Filipa and the characters of Gaugin, Byron and Luca are all extremely (ironically) memorable.
March 13, 2023
4.5/5⭐️
June 4, 2016
[3.5 Stars]
December 23, 2016
Such a letdown, here the author had such an amazing main character, she could have gone in a myriad of ways with the story , so many possibilities but instead the author chose a barely cohesive story , a plot that never explained itself and a character that never inspired anything but just the minimum of feelings .... I'm so disappointed.... I really expected much more from this book.
August 20, 2021
This one was hard to rate.
First, I wanted to give it 5 stars, but then I remember my struggle to finish the reading, so I felt it will be lying. A 4-star rating seemed kind of fair, even so, there are sections that put the story square in three star territory. So I leave it at 3.5 stars rounded to 4.
There are so many parts in this book that are the perfect example of what 5-star writing looks like (in my opinion, of course), but there are also sections where exactly the same things that make the writing incredible at first, then turn it into something of a tired mess.
Perhaps that old saying ". . . too much of a good thing." is the best way to put it.
But, not to confuse you, let me start from the beginning.
This is Hope's story. Hope is the daughter of a woman that once crossed a desert to find a life and a man who was once a cop. Hope has a little sister. Her little sister has brain damage from when, at age four, contracted measles. But that's not the most interesting thing about Hope, because what makes Hope unique is that no one can remember her. Between 20 seconds and a minute is all it takes to forget her. A moment you're looking directly at her, knowing her name, having a conversation with her, and a moment later, after you got distracted and looked somewhere else, or went to the toilet, or closed your eyes for a little too long, you have forgotten she exists. That's the premise of this book. And it is an excellent premise that Claire North (which is a pseudonym the author uses for reasons I still wish to comprehend) mixes with the creation of a pernicious app that helps its users achieve Perfection, a lot of very clever social commentary, a couple of very grey (never white, never black) characters, and a lot of traveling to create a very special novel.
I have to say, putting this book down was a challenge, at least for the first 3/4 of it (though, the later sections where a bit of the opposite). North's writing is engaging, and intelligent, and fast, like a movie shot mostly in blurry scenes, a la Bourne Identity, and the story takes off from page one. However, those exact qualities make it hard for the story to be about much more than ideas it presents. Don't take me wrong, there's a lot of action here, and feelings, and all those other things novels often have, but the story soon turns on itself, analyzing its own premises and that is not conducive to an easy narrative, which soon reflects in the readers (or most accurately, my) willingness to keep reading, and that is why I think so many people say the book is too long for its own good.
So, even if I don't want, because I love how North writes, and because I live in eternal awe of writers who manage to say so much about the world we live without turning their stories into preachy speech, I have to confess that to go through the last quarter of the story, I had to force myself to keep reading, because the farther I went the more convinced I got that the only possible ending was exactly how the book does end, so I lost my reason to read. Moreover, because so much have been said already about what was coming, it was hard to find any of the actual ending enticing or new.
So here I end, with a mix review, as the book was a mix read, for me.
First, I wanted to give it 5 stars, but then I remember my struggle to finish the reading, so I felt it will be lying. A 4-star rating seemed kind of fair, even so, there are sections that put the story square in three star territory. So I leave it at 3.5 stars rounded to 4.
There are so many parts in this book that are the perfect example of what 5-star writing looks like (in my opinion, of course), but there are also sections where exactly the same things that make the writing incredible at first, then turn it into something of a tired mess.
Perhaps that old saying ". . . too much of a good thing." is the best way to put it.
But, not to confuse you, let me start from the beginning.
This is Hope's story. Hope is the daughter of a woman that once crossed a desert to find a life and a man who was once a cop. Hope has a little sister. Her little sister has brain damage from when, at age four, contracted measles. But that's not the most interesting thing about Hope, because what makes Hope unique is that no one can remember her. Between 20 seconds and a minute is all it takes to forget her. A moment you're looking directly at her, knowing her name, having a conversation with her, and a moment later, after you got distracted and looked somewhere else, or went to the toilet, or closed your eyes for a little too long, you have forgotten she exists. That's the premise of this book. And it is an excellent premise that Claire North (which is a pseudonym the author uses for reasons I still wish to comprehend) mixes with the creation of a pernicious app that helps its users achieve Perfection, a lot of very clever social commentary, a couple of very grey (never white, never black) characters, and a lot of traveling to create a very special novel.
I have to say, putting this book down was a challenge, at least for the first 3/4 of it (though, the later sections where a bit of the opposite). North's writing is engaging, and intelligent, and fast, like a movie shot mostly in blurry scenes, a la Bourne Identity, and the story takes off from page one. However, those exact qualities make it hard for the story to be about much more than ideas it presents. Don't take me wrong, there's a lot of action here, and feelings, and all those other things novels often have, but the story soon turns on itself, analyzing its own premises and that is not conducive to an easy narrative, which soon reflects in the readers (or most accurately, my) willingness to keep reading, and that is why I think so many people say the book is too long for its own good.
So, even if I don't want, because I love how North writes, and because I live in eternal awe of writers who manage to say so much about the world we live without turning their stories into preachy speech, I have to confess that to go through the last quarter of the story, I had to force myself to keep reading, because the farther I went the more convinced I got that the only possible ending was exactly how the book does end, so I lost my reason to read. Moreover, because so much have been said already about what was coming, it was hard to find any of the actual ending enticing or new.
So here I end, with a mix review, as the book was a mix read, for me.
July 24, 2023
4.33 fully-impressed stars
Having recently read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and heard that the author's other title, Touch was even better, I had lower expeditions for this one. My skepticism was purely mathematical, I mean what are the odds that 1 author writes 3 incredible novels over 3 years? Miniscule, right?
Claire North, defies the odds. The First 15 Lives of Harry August had a fascinating fantastical element that was explored in a comfy, cozy British mystery style. Here Claire has another brilliant fantastical element, but the style is less conventional, yet perfectly tailored to the subject matter. It takes you on a journey from Dubai to Istanbul, from Tokyo to remote South Korea, a diagonal line across the US and a mad dash from Manchester to Venice via Nimes and back again. Fulfilling armchair travel for the carbon concerned.
It also takes you in a journey through the mind of Hope and her observations on many vile aspects of our modern world. Its probably the most successful first person narrative I've had the delight of reading. It's halting, abrupt, it doesn't trust itself and their are very good reasons for it.
The cover and the blurb make it seem like it focuses an angsty teen, experiencing a personal dystopia. That couldn't be farther from the truth - but I hope it helped make this book more widely read, as it deserves to be.
Recommended for fans of inventive speculative literature with a twist.
Graphic designs by Guy Catling
Having recently read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and heard that the author's other title, Touch was even better, I had lower expeditions for this one. My skepticism was purely mathematical, I mean what are the odds that 1 author writes 3 incredible novels over 3 years? Miniscule, right?
Claire North, defies the odds. The First 15 Lives of Harry August had a fascinating fantastical element that was explored in a comfy, cozy British mystery style. Here Claire has another brilliant fantastical element, but the style is less conventional, yet perfectly tailored to the subject matter. It takes you on a journey from Dubai to Istanbul, from Tokyo to remote South Korea, a diagonal line across the US and a mad dash from Manchester to Venice via Nimes and back again. Fulfilling armchair travel for the carbon concerned.
It also takes you in a journey through the mind of Hope and her observations on many vile aspects of our modern world. Its probably the most successful first person narrative I've had the delight of reading. It's halting, abrupt, it doesn't trust itself and their are very good reasons for it.
The cover and the blurb make it seem like it focuses an angsty teen, experiencing a personal dystopia. That couldn't be farther from the truth - but I hope it helped make this book more widely read, as it deserves to be.
Recommended for fans of inventive speculative literature with a twist.
Graphic designs by Guy Catling
March 4, 2020
I woke up early and was able to finish this in time for today's shower thought to be "This book is like the unedited full version of 'Nights in White Satin' by the Moody Blues."
The parallels: it's got some objectively beautiful, moving parts, perhaps leaning a bit towards pathos but hey, it works. And then it goes on and you think "my, this is a bit longer than I recalled." And then it fades out and you think "I wonder if this was all strictly necessary, but it's over n--" but it is not over now, for now the poetry begins! After the entire story is over! And you listen, moving from moved to bemused to a bit igry. And then the gong happens. Or, in this case, the final chapter.
But it's still, like, a quality piece just entirely too long and precious.
CONTENT WARNINGS (a list of topics):
Things that I loved:
-The premise. This is the second book by North I've read and she really invests in her "what ifs" to the point that everything makes so much sense, and is at once entirely practical and staggering to think about.
-The character. Who would you be if you weren't ever remembered? I think the author did a fantastic job meeting and creating this woman.
-The social ills. It's been done before but it's always somewhat vindicating to see advertising as mind control.
-The humanity. Everyone is just such a careful person, with their own motives and hurts and loves. Hope is a monster who works with monsters and yet all of them wear their human skins so easily.
Things that did not work for me:
-The philosophy. We kept having "Humanities 101" type interludes that I felt were not meshed well into the story and became sort of self-serving.
-The plot. The particulars did not feel nearly as fleshed out to me as the ideas, which meant it was drawn out, random, and many times things would happen and I'd have to make quantum leaps to figure out what the character had just realized. Also, some of the things that happened I still don't understand. Why did Evard react like that in the cafe? That was so out of character. And same with Matisse!
-The length. It should have been about 100 pages shorter but...
-The final chapter. ...we needed the gong finish. Ending on 106 apparently trumped the need for a tightly woven story, which makes me wonder, is this a symbol, a flourish? Or is the author seeking perfection? Either way, this diminished the success of the earlier ideas for me.
I think Claire North is an immensely intelligent, imaginative, empathic author and I'm glad to spend time with her art. I just wanted to spend a bit less time. And seriously, where are all the developmental editors hiding? Do publishers have them in the basement??
The parallels: it's got some objectively beautiful, moving parts, perhaps leaning a bit towards pathos but hey, it works. And then it goes on and you think "my, this is a bit longer than I recalled." And then it fades out and you think "I wonder if this was all strictly necessary, but it's over n--" but it is not over now, for now the poetry begins! After the entire story is over! And you listen, moving from moved to bemused to a bit igry. And then the gong happens. Or, in this case, the final chapter.
But it's still, like, a quality piece just entirely too long and precious.
CONTENT WARNINGS (a list of topics):
Things that I loved:
-The premise. This is the second book by North I've read and she really invests in her "what ifs" to the point that everything makes so much sense, and is at once entirely practical and staggering to think about.
-The character. Who would you be if you weren't ever remembered? I think the author did a fantastic job meeting and creating this woman.
-The social ills. It's been done before but it's always somewhat vindicating to see advertising as mind control.
-The humanity. Everyone is just such a careful person, with their own motives and hurts and loves. Hope is a monster who works with monsters and yet all of them wear their human skins so easily.
Things that did not work for me:
-The philosophy. We kept having "Humanities 101" type interludes that I felt were not meshed well into the story and became sort of self-serving.
-The plot. The particulars did not feel nearly as fleshed out to me as the ideas, which meant it was drawn out, random, and many times things would happen and I'd have to make quantum leaps to figure out what the character had just realized. Also, some of the things that happened I still don't understand. Why did Evard react like that in the cafe? That was so out of character. And same with Matisse!
-The length. It should have been about 100 pages shorter but...
-The final chapter. ...we needed the gong finish. Ending on 106 apparently trumped the need for a tightly woven story, which makes me wonder, is this a symbol, a flourish? Or is the author seeking perfection? Either way, this diminished the success of the earlier ideas for me.
I think Claire North is an immensely intelligent, imaginative, empathic author and I'm glad to spend time with her art. I just wanted to spend a bit less time. And seriously, where are all the developmental editors hiding? Do publishers have them in the basement??
September 16, 2016
4.5 stars. Just what I expected from Claire North - a fascinating concept, far flung locales, musings on the nature of life, being, and memory, and some game playing. Lots of fun.
May 31, 2017
The idea that you could be forgotten by nearly everyone around you, mere minutes after they turn away or leave the room, seems, initially, like a wonderful situation for someone who identifies herself as a thief moments into the story she relates. Hope Arden exists momentarily in each face-to-face interaction, then disappears from people's minds once they've turned away or she's left their view. They can't remember her face, or that she was there. This sounds so freeing for Hope, and terrifying for anyone encountering her. ("What just happened?") Then, gradually, the full horror and isolation of Hope's situation begins to dawn on her listener/reader. How can she hold down a job, how can she have friends, how can she plan for housing, etc.?
When Hope steals some diamonds at a swanky party attended by unnaturally beautiful, "perfect" people, she inadvertently ends up becoming involved with Perfection. Perfection is a program that people use to become perfect. Perfect in appearance, perfect in conversation, perfect in any situation.....Once a user grants Perfection access to a variety of their personal information, Perfection proceeds to motivate its users to make choices (shopping, eating, exercising, etc.) for points. By accumulating points, the users get access to more exclusive services that they can use to gain higher levels of personal perfection.
From a privacy perspective, I found Perfection horrifying, and the people it created to be horrible and plastic. Having read not that long ago about the misuse of data by corporations creating programs based on racist, sexist and/or classist biases (i.e., data science for profit and social engineering), I found the discussions between Hope and Filippa Pereira-Conroy and later Byron, to be fascinating.
I found the author's commentary about beauty and social standing sharp: what is perfect?, what does it look like?, and how can anyone but the rich achieve the program's definition of perfect?
Claire North's prose is beautiful, and I loved the dialogue, and the names of the characters, in particular Filippa Pereira-Conroy's.
This is a long story, but I found that I really enjoyed it, even when it felt a little slow in parts.
I experienced this book in audio, and really enjoyed the voice work by Gillian Burke, who beautifully captured Hope's anger, humour, ferocity, and loneliness (though I didn't think her american accent was great.)
When Hope steals some diamonds at a swanky party attended by unnaturally beautiful, "perfect" people, she inadvertently ends up becoming involved with Perfection. Perfection is a program that people use to become perfect. Perfect in appearance, perfect in conversation, perfect in any situation.....Once a user grants Perfection access to a variety of their personal information, Perfection proceeds to motivate its users to make choices (shopping, eating, exercising, etc.) for points. By accumulating points, the users get access to more exclusive services that they can use to gain higher levels of personal perfection.
From a privacy perspective, I found Perfection horrifying, and the people it created to be horrible and plastic. Having read not that long ago about the misuse of data by corporations creating programs based on racist, sexist and/or classist biases (i.e., data science for profit and social engineering), I found the discussions between Hope and Filippa Pereira-Conroy and later Byron, to be fascinating.
I found the author's commentary about beauty and social standing sharp: what is perfect?, what does it look like?, and how can anyone but the rich achieve the program's definition of perfect?
Claire North's prose is beautiful, and I loved the dialogue, and the names of the characters, in particular Filippa Pereira-Conroy's.
This is a long story, but I found that I really enjoyed it, even when it felt a little slow in parts.
I experienced this book in audio, and really enjoyed the voice work by Gillian Burke, who beautifully captured Hope's anger, humour, ferocity, and loneliness (though I didn't think her american accent was great.)
September 20, 2016
3.5 stars
I was completely fascinated with the concept of this book about a young woman who can not be remembered. People meet her and forget her within seconds of her walking away. This obviously makes life extremely difficult and she has to resort to all kinds of illegal behavior just to survive. It asks all kinds of identity questions like who are you if no one remembers you, are you real?
I didn't love this as much as I had hoped to. I found it to drag and be repetitive. I felt like everything was held at arms length and I couldn't really get invested. At about 53%, on the advice of a friend, I switched to the audio. I enjoyed the second half MUCH more. The narrator was able to capture the feelings of isolation and frustration and not caring that I just wasn't really feeling in print. I really wish I had gone with the audio from the beginning but I'm glad I switched and finished the book.
I was completely fascinated with the concept of this book about a young woman who can not be remembered. People meet her and forget her within seconds of her walking away. This obviously makes life extremely difficult and she has to resort to all kinds of illegal behavior just to survive. It asks all kinds of identity questions like who are you if no one remembers you, are you real?
I didn't love this as much as I had hoped to. I found it to drag and be repetitive. I felt like everything was held at arms length and I couldn't really get invested. At about 53%, on the advice of a friend, I switched to the audio. I enjoyed the second half MUCH more. The narrator was able to capture the feelings of isolation and frustration and not caring that I just wasn't really feeling in print. I really wish I had gone with the audio from the beginning but I'm glad I switched and finished the book.
November 5, 2019
A big note of thanks to Jenna for pointing me in this book’s direction. This is a memorable and ultimately thought provoking story of perfection as the enemy. When I used to run counseling groups with children I would sometimes get things started by asking each one to name a super power that would like to have. The majority wished to be invisible. Once invisible they became very creative about what they would do and get away with. This story brought those discussions back to me as becoming invisible, in a sense, is at the core of Hope’s narrative. She has grand plans for never being remembered as well. She becomes a jewel thief. The author examines vengeance, identity and how we are perceived along with other relevant to our times issues.
June 12, 2016
Claire North never fails to deliver. Hope Arden is a woman who can't be remembered in a world where everyone wants to be perfect. This is a weird, character-driven book that requires you to think. The plot is fairly thin, but you don't read a book like this for the plot, you read it for the meditation on character. On what it means to be remembered. I definitely recommend giving it a read.
September 19, 2016
I exist in this physical world as sure as stone, but in the world of men—in that world that is collective memory, in the dream-world where people find meaning, feeling, importance—I am a ghost. Only in the present tense am I real.
The whole notion of someone that people cannot remember is both fascinating and horrible. Like all ‘superpowers’, this ability seems at first amazing and liberating, but very soon one can see that it is indeed a curse. North shows us what can be achieved and what is lost in the extraordinary character of Hope Arden. Through her voice we experience her unsettling, fantastic, and lonely existence, her survival, her philosophy and thirst for knowledge, all elements, coping mechanisms really, that help her keep madness at bay, for do you exist if no one remembers you.
I wondered if the author was inspired by the symptoms of people who cannot make long term memories, which have been used in books lately, and reversed it, applying to the rest of the world instead. At other times, I thought she perhaps wanted to comment on our habit to always look at the past of future but never really in the present, by creating a character who is condemned to exist only in that fleeting moment.
All this might sound very existentialist, and yes, it is, but the author morphs this into a fast-paced adventure, whizzing you around the world, with thrilling moments and suspense. I literally could not stop reading, wanting to find out how it would all end. Due to Hope’s condition, North gives us a very different perception of the world, of people and of interactions, one that is so alien and yet recognisable, as if seen through a mirror that is just a tiny bit distorted.
The other thing that grabbed me, and scared me, was the concept of Perfection - an app that would tell you how to become perfect in a world lead by consumption and superficiality, where marketing and normalisation are in power, and where to be different and have a mind of your own is to be imperfect. The horror is that this already exists now and North only had nudge it a little and tie it up in a pretty bow. What is perfect? What is happiness? What is the right thing to do? How far is too far? Hope struggles with these concepts, as do we all.
I am really impressed by this novel and cannot believe it has taken me this long to read one of Claire North’s books. It is both an incredible adventure and a deeply thought-provoking text. The narrative sometimes takes on some unusual paths, which might not be to everyone’s taste, changing the pace, turning things on their heads, and yet I found the psychology aspects as engrossing, especially how memory, identity, and worth are linked.
The whole notion of someone that people cannot remember is both fascinating and horrible. Like all ‘superpowers’, this ability seems at first amazing and liberating, but very soon one can see that it is indeed a curse. North shows us what can be achieved and what is lost in the extraordinary character of Hope Arden. Through her voice we experience her unsettling, fantastic, and lonely existence, her survival, her philosophy and thirst for knowledge, all elements, coping mechanisms really, that help her keep madness at bay, for do you exist if no one remembers you.
I wondered if the author was inspired by the symptoms of people who cannot make long term memories, which have been used in books lately, and reversed it, applying to the rest of the world instead. At other times, I thought she perhaps wanted to comment on our habit to always look at the past of future but never really in the present, by creating a character who is condemned to exist only in that fleeting moment.
All this might sound very existentialist, and yes, it is, but the author morphs this into a fast-paced adventure, whizzing you around the world, with thrilling moments and suspense. I literally could not stop reading, wanting to find out how it would all end. Due to Hope’s condition, North gives us a very different perception of the world, of people and of interactions, one that is so alien and yet recognisable, as if seen through a mirror that is just a tiny bit distorted.
The other thing that grabbed me, and scared me, was the concept of Perfection - an app that would tell you how to become perfect in a world lead by consumption and superficiality, where marketing and normalisation are in power, and where to be different and have a mind of your own is to be imperfect. The horror is that this already exists now and North only had nudge it a little and tie it up in a pretty bow. What is perfect? What is happiness? What is the right thing to do? How far is too far? Hope struggles with these concepts, as do we all.
I am really impressed by this novel and cannot believe it has taken me this long to read one of Claire North’s books. It is both an incredible adventure and a deeply thought-provoking text. The narrative sometimes takes on some unusual paths, which might not be to everyone’s taste, changing the pace, turning things on their heads, and yet I found the psychology aspects as engrossing, especially how memory, identity, and worth are linked.
October 20, 2022
Patīk man šādas dusmīgas grāmatas. Vismaz nav jāšaubās, vai autoram maz ir kas sakāms.
April 5, 2017
And it's another win from Claire North!!! I really couldn't put this down. At first I thought it was going to be a very point A to point B novel but it took a few interesting turns along the way.
Hope is a woman that everyone forgets. Every time she meets someone she's meeting them for the first time. For them, anyway. She's learned to work with this really well and it's incredibly interesting to see her get out of scrapes based on her experience with how this works.
But what do you do when nobody remembers you? You can't have a job, an apartment, a friend, a lover... What do you do when your parents forget you exist and you're still under age? Hope becomes a thief mostly out of necessity. Then along comes Perfection. Perfection is a highly disturbing app that pushes people more and more towards the maker's goals. You get points for buying the perfect clothes, getting the perfect haircut, eating the right foods, etc. But when someone that Hope cares about (that doesn't remember her, of course) commits suicide, Hope starts to specifically target Perfection. Things get a bit complicated and messy because she doesn't quite know what she's trying to do; it's more like she's figuring out along the way. In the process she gets involved with other people with other agendas. This is fascinating because they can't remember her. Every conversation vanishes in their mind. They can record it and take notes but they still have no memory of their interactions with her.
I loved every second of this book and could not put it down. The audio was also absolutely excellent. Also, I was recently complaining about a character where the word "fuck" was thrown in thoughtlessly and it was stupid. In this case the author does this brilliantly. When the character says Fuck fuck fuck fuckitty fuckitty fuck, which is quite possibly one of my favorite quotes, you know exactly why she's doing this and I felt like I was venting with her. Her frustration at these moments was very tangible.
I just love this author.
Hope is a woman that everyone forgets. Every time she meets someone she's meeting them for the first time. For them, anyway. She's learned to work with this really well and it's incredibly interesting to see her get out of scrapes based on her experience with how this works.
But what do you do when nobody remembers you? You can't have a job, an apartment, a friend, a lover... What do you do when your parents forget you exist and you're still under age? Hope becomes a thief mostly out of necessity. Then along comes Perfection. Perfection is a highly disturbing app that pushes people more and more towards the maker's goals. You get points for buying the perfect clothes, getting the perfect haircut, eating the right foods, etc. But when someone that Hope cares about (that doesn't remember her, of course) commits suicide, Hope starts to specifically target Perfection. Things get a bit complicated and messy because she doesn't quite know what she's trying to do; it's more like she's figuring out along the way. In the process she gets involved with other people with other agendas. This is fascinating because they can't remember her. Every conversation vanishes in their mind. They can record it and take notes but they still have no memory of their interactions with her.
I loved every second of this book and could not put it down. The audio was also absolutely excellent. Also, I was recently complaining about a character where the word "fuck" was thrown in thoughtlessly and it was stupid. In this case the author does this brilliantly. When the character says Fuck fuck fuck fuckitty fuckitty fuck, which is quite possibly one of my favorite quotes, you know exactly why she's doing this and I felt like I was venting with her. Her frustration at these moments was very tangible.
I just love this author.
July 10, 2016
Nutshell Review;
Interesting, thought provoking read. Loved the generous dashing's of poems and random facts sprinkled throughout the story. The main character was fascinating yet relatable. Great writing, excited to read more by this author.
Buy, Borrow or Bin Verdict: Buy
Note: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
Interesting, thought provoking read. Loved the generous dashing's of poems and random facts sprinkled throughout the story. The main character was fascinating yet relatable. Great writing, excited to read more by this author.
Buy, Borrow or Bin Verdict: Buy
Note: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
December 6, 2017
2017 World Fantasy Award winner
Wow.
Well.
I don't know what to do with myself now that this book is done.
Of all the great books I've read this year, this solidly lands in the top three contestants for favorite.
Brad - he's one of my go-to reviewers when I want to know about science fiction - talks about a freedom vs. enslavement narrative happening here and that's absolutely on topic but, for me, this was more about inside vs. outside and how that relates to personhood.
Are you a person, do you even exist, bro, if your words and actions have no consequence in society? Can you be part of society if you're not recognized by other people? Are you a super member of society if you do all the right things and behave in the most acceptable way possible? Is there a sliding scale on humanity from having no humanity if you're unknown as a person up to having all the humanity if you follow a narrow set of prescribed social rules?
And looking at the freedom vs. enslavement - are you free if you don't have to follow rules, if you exist outside of all communal structure? Or are you kept in solitude because you can never have a connection to your fellow humans? If you can't have a job or form a relationship or have a home, are you free or is that just a different kind of imprisonment? Shunning a person is a form of punishment, it strips away their belonging. Is that freedom?
There are a few storylines running through this book and it starts when they all collide.
First, Hope Arden is unrememberable. She knows she exists but nobody else knows. Scratch that, some people do but those people have some sort of intellectual anomaly going on which allows them to remember Hope. She's so well-named.
Hope exists in the now, never in the past nor the future. People interact with her face-to-face in the moment but as soon as they stop looking and talking to her, they forget all about her, forget the conversation they had, forget there was time spent with this person, forget the person altogether. They remember doing what they did but they remember doing it alone, Hope is literally out of sight, out of mind. There's no explanation for this, no one knows why this is happening but some do figure out that it is happening, that there's a person who is seen by cameras, whose voice can be recorded, who exists in the digital world despite no one remembering her in real time. They start to look for her. But how do you find someone you can't remember?
At the same time, a lifestyle app called Perfection is making the rounds and it's incredible. People download it to their phones and it helps them achieve goals toward being a healthier, happier, all-around-better person. You get points every time you follow one of Perfection's suggestions and achieve success. Eventually, you're enticed to link it to all your rewards cards, to your bank account (it can help you save money and spend more wisely), and everything else in your life. As you gain points, you win prizes like a day at an exclusive spa or a shopping trip to a boutique for clothing that will look amazing on you. The more you use it, the better you become as a person and those who have acquired a million points get to join an elite club of perfect people. And that all sounds pretty great only it's not. It's insidious; the parameters of perfection are so narrowly defined by a market-driven algorithm that there's no room left for any type of individuality or thought. It's brainwashing at its finest and it doesn't even have to be forced on people, they want to use this app because it's fun and there are rewards and it does make you a better person and you'll be happy. Except for the people who don't have the mental capacity to conform so easily as well as those who can't afford to make it past 100,000 points.
Enter the bridge between Hope and Perfection: Gaugin, Byron14, and an Interpol agent who is in charge of finding Hope and feels he's always about to get her but is never successful. These three people allow Hope to manifest feelings of trust, friendship, and love, all sustained by Hope, herself, but fed by the people who knows she exists even if they can't find her.
The story is by turns heartbreaking and thought-provoking. There's suspense, there's spy-vs-spy stuff, there's diabolical scheming, there's the interplay of socioeconomics and politics, there's world travel, there are moments of devastation and moments of (eh heh heh heh) hope. There's also a ton of repetition.
The book is repetitive but that's Hope's life. She repeats moments over and over because she can't build a history with anyone, everyone always meets her for the first time and they have the same conversations and it never ends. But repetition is the key to this novel as a technique used by Hope to keep herself sane and also used by Perfection to Treat people. Numbers repeat, moments repeat, phrases repeat, beats repeat (Heeey, Macarena!) the story constantly repeats. It's an effective, if incredibly annoying, device.
For me, all the elements combined perfectly, no matter how small. One of the most irritating songs in the world is used brilliantly. Poetry is a weapon. Perfection being driven by marketing to achieve human conformity was so believable it made me want to get rid of a ton of my apps. The symbolism and inspiration of a woman crossing the desert. The desolation of Hope and her perseverance despite not existing outside of herself and the digital world gave me so much food for thought. Add to that, the reader for this audiobook is extraordinary and this one's going to stay with me for a long time.
I'll remember you, Hope.
Wow.
Well.
I don't know what to do with myself now that this book is done.
Of all the great books I've read this year, this solidly lands in the top three contestants for favorite.
Brad - he's one of my go-to reviewers when I want to know about science fiction - talks about a freedom vs. enslavement narrative happening here and that's absolutely on topic but, for me, this was more about inside vs. outside and how that relates to personhood.
Are you a person, do you even exist, bro, if your words and actions have no consequence in society? Can you be part of society if you're not recognized by other people? Are you a super member of society if you do all the right things and behave in the most acceptable way possible? Is there a sliding scale on humanity from having no humanity if you're unknown as a person up to having all the humanity if you follow a narrow set of prescribed social rules?
And looking at the freedom vs. enslavement - are you free if you don't have to follow rules, if you exist outside of all communal structure? Or are you kept in solitude because you can never have a connection to your fellow humans? If you can't have a job or form a relationship or have a home, are you free or is that just a different kind of imprisonment? Shunning a person is a form of punishment, it strips away their belonging. Is that freedom?
There are a few storylines running through this book and it starts when they all collide.
First, Hope Arden is unrememberable. She knows she exists but nobody else knows. Scratch that, some people do but those people have some sort of intellectual anomaly going on which allows them to remember Hope. She's so well-named.
Hope exists in the now, never in the past nor the future. People interact with her face-to-face in the moment but as soon as they stop looking and talking to her, they forget all about her, forget the conversation they had, forget there was time spent with this person, forget the person altogether. They remember doing what they did but they remember doing it alone, Hope is literally out of sight, out of mind. There's no explanation for this, no one knows why this is happening but some do figure out that it is happening, that there's a person who is seen by cameras, whose voice can be recorded, who exists in the digital world despite no one remembering her in real time. They start to look for her. But how do you find someone you can't remember?
At the same time, a lifestyle app called Perfection is making the rounds and it's incredible. People download it to their phones and it helps them achieve goals toward being a healthier, happier, all-around-better person. You get points every time you follow one of Perfection's suggestions and achieve success. Eventually, you're enticed to link it to all your rewards cards, to your bank account (it can help you save money and spend more wisely), and everything else in your life. As you gain points, you win prizes like a day at an exclusive spa or a shopping trip to a boutique for clothing that will look amazing on you. The more you use it, the better you become as a person and those who have acquired a million points get to join an elite club of perfect people. And that all sounds pretty great only it's not. It's insidious; the parameters of perfection are so narrowly defined by a market-driven algorithm that there's no room left for any type of individuality or thought. It's brainwashing at its finest and it doesn't even have to be forced on people, they want to use this app because it's fun and there are rewards and it does make you a better person and you'll be happy. Except for the people who don't have the mental capacity to conform so easily as well as those who can't afford to make it past 100,000 points.
Enter the bridge between Hope and Perfection: Gaugin, Byron14, and an Interpol agent who is in charge of finding Hope and feels he's always about to get her but is never successful. These three people allow Hope to manifest feelings of trust, friendship, and love, all sustained by Hope, herself, but fed by the people who knows she exists even if they can't find her.
The story is by turns heartbreaking and thought-provoking. There's suspense, there's spy-vs-spy stuff, there's diabolical scheming, there's the interplay of socioeconomics and politics, there's world travel, there are moments of devastation and moments of (eh heh heh heh) hope. There's also a ton of repetition.
The book is repetitive but that's Hope's life. She repeats moments over and over because she can't build a history with anyone, everyone always meets her for the first time and they have the same conversations and it never ends. But repetition is the key to this novel as a technique used by Hope to keep herself sane and also used by Perfection to Treat people. Numbers repeat, moments repeat, phrases repeat, beats repeat (Heeey, Macarena!) the story constantly repeats. It's an effective, if incredibly annoying, device.
For me, all the elements combined perfectly, no matter how small. One of the most irritating songs in the world is used brilliantly. Poetry is a weapon. Perfection being driven by marketing to achieve human conformity was so believable it made me want to get rid of a ton of my apps. The symbolism and inspiration of a woman crossing the desert. The desolation of Hope and her perseverance despite not existing outside of herself and the digital world gave me so much food for thought. Add to that, the reader for this audiobook is extraordinary and this one's going to stay with me for a long time.
I'll remember you, Hope.
October 17, 2022
Ja man par Klēru Nortu būtu jāpasaka tikai viena lieta, tad tā būtu - viņa raksta lieliski nostrādātu prozu, kurā iekrist un aizmirsties. Bet viņa neļaus jums aizmirst Cerību Ardenu - sievieti, kuru visi aizmirst. Kā arī liks padomāt par mūsdienu sabiedrību un tās nemitīgo tiekšanos pēc ideāliem. Vienlaikus izklaidējot, aizkustinot un liekot skriet cauri lappusēm.
June 3, 2016
** This copy was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope has an interesting synopsis;
A Girl who you forgot once you looked away, that is hopes gift and curse. Sounds fantastic right? Well maybe it is to others but for me it was just TO DAMN SLOW. SO SLOW, like a Snail riding a Turtle riding a Sloth.
Now I am one for flowery and descriptive writing but I couldn't get into this and because I couldn't get into the writing style me and Hope had nohopechance.
I didn't not like Hope BUT there's nothing I can say I enjoyed about her. As Hope is forgotten the moment someone looks away we never get to see her truly interact with someone for a decent amount of time. We don't get to really explore her character and that was a downer for me, she just felt a bit to disconnected from everything.
Hope is a Jewel thief and I liked seeing her in action but it all just comes back around to the writing and I wasn't a fan.
The story line was interesting and I'd suggest getting a free sample of the book if your not sure if you'll get into the writing but are interested in the premise.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope has an interesting synopsis;
A Girl who you forgot once you looked away, that is hopes gift and curse. Sounds fantastic right? Well maybe it is to others but for me it was just TO DAMN SLOW. SO SLOW, like a Snail riding a Turtle riding a Sloth.
Now I am one for flowery and descriptive writing but I couldn't get into this and because I couldn't get into the writing style me and Hope had no
I didn't not like Hope BUT there's nothing I can say I enjoyed about her. As Hope is forgotten the moment someone looks away we never get to see her truly interact with someone for a decent amount of time. We don't get to really explore her character and that was a downer for me, she just felt a bit to disconnected from everything.
Hope is a Jewel thief and I liked seeing her in action but it all just comes back around to the writing and I wasn't a fan.
The story line was interesting and I'd suggest getting a free sample of the book if your not sure if you'll get into the writing but are interested in the premise.
December 13, 2018
I greatly enjoyed this book. North took a simple idea, a woman whom no can remember, and wove a wonderful and insightful story around her. My only knock on the book was that there was a stretch in the middle that dragged a bit and it may have been a bit too long. But it was still a stellar and gripping read.
Another major theme of the book, somewhat linked to the idea of identity, was Perfection. In the story there is an app called Perfection that subtly crafts its users to a particular behavior pattern through a point system. Eat the right way, go to the right places, see the right people and you get points which can be redeemed for a variety of service (vacations, spas days, etc). Eat the wrong way, eschew exercise, consume the wrong type of entertainment and get docked points. Of course to achieve high levels of Perfection requires quite the budget:
Of course it isn't all introspection and social critiques. North does a neat job of exploring how a person with Hope's condition would live (if you guessed theft give yourself a pat on the back). One particular bit I liked was about free classes:
As memory of me faded, so did a part of myself. Whoever that Hope Arden is who laughs with her friends, smiles with her family, flirts with her lover, resents her boss, triumphs with her colleagues – she ceased to exist, and it has been surprising for me to discover just how little of me is left behind, when all that is stripped away.The book explored several interesting ideas, the most salient being identity. How much of ourselves is who we are as opposed to how other people relate to us. Many of us behave in ways dictated by the social circumstance we find ourselves in. We act differently in a work environment compared to a social environment full of friends compared to the city bus. Our identity is partial a product of the social environment we reside in, as we impact and are impacted by others.
I exist in this physical world as sure as stone, but in the world of men – in that world that is collective memory, in the dream-world where people find meaning, feeling, importance – I am a ghost. Only in the present tense am I real.But for Hope those pressures and feedbacks don't exist. There is no external steadying pressure on her. No one to tell her when she is acting out of line or that she needs a hug and a nice mug of cocoa. She had to craft an identity and a code of conduct to meticulously stick too or else she could very easily of lost herself to insanity. She sees it as a horrible burden, but another character who gets to know her (or at least as well as a Hope's condition allows) sees it as a marvelous gift:
“There’s your mistake. You have a gift, Hope, one of the greatest ever given. You are outside it all; you are free of it.”I found this vein of the story very thought provoking and insightful.
“Free of …”
“Of people. Of society. You have no need to conform, what’s the point? No one will thank you for it, no one will remember you, and so you have the freedom to choose your own path, your own humanity, to be who you want to be, not some puppet shaped by the TV and the magazines, by the advertising men, by the latest definition of work or play, by ideas of sex, gender, by—”
“Perfection?”
“By perfection. You choose your own perfect. You choose to be who you are, and the world cannot shape you, unless you permit it. The world cannot move you, unless it is by your own welcoming in. You are free, Hope. You are more free than anyone living.”
Another major theme of the book, somewhat linked to the idea of identity, was Perfection. In the story there is an app called Perfection that subtly crafts its users to a particular behavior pattern through a point system. Eat the right way, go to the right places, see the right people and you get points which can be redeemed for a variety of service (vacations, spas days, etc). Eat the wrong way, eschew exercise, consume the wrong type of entertainment and get docked points. Of course to achieve high levels of Perfection requires quite the budget:
No – the perfect life is to have an annual salary of £120,000, an Aston Martin, a £1.6-million-pound home, a wife, two children and at least two foreign holidays a year. Perfection is an idol built upon oppression. Perfection is the heaven that kept the masses suppressed; the promise of a future life that quells rebellion. Perfection is the self-hatred an overweight woman feels when she sees a slim model on TV; perfection is the resentment the well-paid man experiences when he beholds a miserable millionaire. Perfection kills.Much of the book revolved around this app and the harmful impact it had on the users and society in general. But the app isn't the villain, it is merely a stand in for the myriad of pressures society ALREADY exerts upon the population in the real world. Hope, a person who is "free" of such social pressure given her transitory state in the minds of others, stands as polar opposite to this phenomenon and the tension between the two creates a really fascinating read.
Of course it isn't all introspection and social critiques. North does a neat job of exploring how a person with Hope's condition would live (if you guessed theft give yourself a pat on the back). One particular bit I liked was about free classes:
Taster classes – I am the queen of taster classes. There are fitness, language, sewing, cooking, painting and martial arts classes across the world where, for weeks at a time, I was invited not to pay for my tuition because “the first one’s free”. After ten weeks of attendance I’d say that I’d “done a little” and after twenty the experience would usually lose its value, as the length of time it would take a teacher to discover that I had experience would be as long as the class itself, and I could progress no further."It is little things like that which show just how much thought North has put into this concept. She treats the condition in its totality instead of merely where it helps advance the story on top of writing extremely sympathetic and fully fleshed out characters. I greatly enjoyed this reading experience and look forward to many decades of enjoying North's work.
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